The right to liberty and security of the person

Transcription

1 The right to liberty and security of the person A guide to the implementation of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights Monica Macovei Human rights handbooks, No. 5 HR handbook 5.pmd 71 29/10/2004, 10:21

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3 The right to liberty and security of the person A guide to the implementation of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights Monica Macovei Human rights handbooks, No. 5

4 The Human rights handbooks series Handbook No. 1: The right to respect for private and family life. A guide to the implementation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (2001) Handbook No. 2: Freedom of expression. A guide to the implementation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (2001) Handbook No. 3: The right to a fair trial. A guide to the implementation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (2001) Handbook No. 4: The right to property. A guide to the implementation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights (2001) Handbook No. 5: The right to liberty and security of the person. A guide to the implementation of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (2002) Handbook No. 6: The prohibition of torture. A guide to the implementation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (2003) Précis n o 1: Le droit au respect de la vie privée et familiale. Un guide sur la mise en œuvre de l article 8 de la Convention européenne des Droits de l Homme (2003) Précis n o 2: La liberté d expression. Un guide sur la mise en œuvre de l article 10 de la Convention européenne des Droits de l Homme (2003) Précis n o 3: Le droit à un procès équitable. Un guide sur la mise en œuvre de l article 6 de la Convention européenne des Droits de l Homme (2003) Précis n o 4: Le droit à la propriété. Un guide sur la mise en œuvre de l article 1 du Protocole nº 1 à la Convention européenne des Droits de l Homme (2003) Précis n o 5: Le droit à la liberté et la sûreté de la personne. Un guide sur la mise en œuvre de l article 5 de la Convention européenne des Droits de l Homme (2003) Précis n o 6: La prohibition de la torture. Un guide sur la mise en œuvre de l article 3 de la Convention européenne des Droits de l Homme (2003) The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not engage the responsibility of the Council of Europe. They should not be regarded as placing upon the legal instruments mentioned in it any official interpretation capable of binding the governments of member states, the Council of Europe s statutory organs or any organ set up by virtue of the European Convention on Human Rights. Directorate General of Human Rights Council of Europe F Strasbourg Cedex Council of Europe, Digital imagery 2002 Photodisc/Getty Images First impression, March 2002 Reprinted December 2004 Printed in Germany 2

5 Contents What the Convention says Section I: presumption of liberty; requirement of lawfulness; concept of detention 8 1. The presumption in favour of liberty The lawfulness of the detention Formal compliance with national law The importance of a continuing legal basis Misguided reliance on domestic practice Compliance with the Convention. The Convention understanding of lawfulness Incompatibility with Convention provisions Arbitrary use of power Accessibility, foreseeability and other guarantees What constitutes a deprivation of liberty? Arrest and detention Elements to establish that detention exists The nature of the confinement The status of the person affected Acts by private individuals Action overseas Section II: Deprivation of liberty as part of the criminal process General considerations Suspected offenders Production before the competent legal authority. 23 Reasonable suspicion The need for pre-trial detention Justifying pre-trial detention The risk of interference with the course of justice 30 The need to prevent crime The need to maintain public order Bail conditions The length of pre-trial detention Convicted offenders Extradition Section III: Other justifications for deprivation of liberty Court order and obligation prescribed by law Detention of minors Detention of persons of unsound mind, alcoholics, drug addicts, vagrants or in order to prevent the spread of infectious diseases

6 Section IV: Duty to give reasons promptly for arrest When the duty arises The nature of the explanation The intelligibility of the explanation Timing Section V: Duty to bring detained persons promptly before a judicial officer and for trial within a reasonable time or release The character of the competent legal authority The role of the competent legal authority The time-frame for supervision Emergencies Continuing supervision Section VI: Challenging the legality of the detention The need for a court Personal appearance Access to legal advice, adversarial proceedings and equality of arms Determining legality Decisions must be taken speedily Link with Article 5 (3) Section VII: Compensation

7 What the Convention says Article 5 of the Convention: right to liberty and security 1. Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be deprived of his liberty save in the following cases and in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law: a. the lawful detention of a person after conviction by a competent court; b. the lawful arrest or detention of a person for non-compliance with the lawful order of a court or in order to secure the fulfilment of any obligation prescribed by law; c. the lawful arrest or detention of a person effected for the purpose of bringing before the competent legal authority on reasonable suspicion of having committed an offence or when it is reasonably considered necessary to prevent his committing an offence or fleeing after having done so; d. the detention of a minor by lawful order for the purpose of educational supervision or his lawful detention for the purpose of bringing him before the competent legal authority; e. the lawful detention of persons for the prevention of the spreading of infectious diseases, of persons of unsound mind, alcoholics or drug addicts or vagrants; f. the lawful arrest or detention of a person to prevent his effecting an unauthorised entry into the country or of a person against whom action is being taken with a view to deportation or extradition. 2. Everyone who is arrested shall be informed promptly, in a language which he understands, of the reasons for his arrest and of any charge against him. 3. Everyone arrested or detained in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1.c of this Article shall be brought promptly before a judge or other officer authorised by law to exercise judicial power and shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release pending trial. Release may be conditioned by guarantees to appear for trial. 4. Everyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings by which the lawfulness of his detention shall be decided speedily by a court and his release ordered if the detention is not lawful; 5. Everyone who has been the victim of arrest or detention in contravention of the provisions of this Article shall have an enforceable right to compensation. Article 1 of Protocol No. 4 No one shall be deprived of his liberty merely on the ground of inability to fulfil a contractual obligation. Article 5 of the European Convention embodies a key element in the protection of an individual s human rights. Personal liberty is a fundamental condition, which everyone should generally enjoy. Its 5

8 deprivation is something that is also likely to have a direct and adverse effect on the enjoyment of many of the other rights, ranging from the right to family and private life, through the right to freedom of assembly, association and expression to the right to freedom of movement. Furthermore, any deprivation of liberty will invariably put the person affected into an extremely vulnerable position, exposing him or her to the risk of being subjected to torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. Judges should constantly keep in mind that in order for the guarantee of liberty to be meaningful, any deprivation of it should always be exceptional, objectively justified and of no longer duration than absolutely necessary. The right to liberty and security is a unique right, as the expression has to be read as a whole. Security of a person must be understood in the context of physical liberty and it cannot be interpreted as to referring to different matters (such as a duty on the state to give someone personal protection form an attack by others, or right to social security). The guarantee of security of person serves to underline a requirement that the authorities in Strasbourg have developed when interpreting and explaining the right to liberty in Article 5. The European Court has stressed the importance of the right to liberty and security in many cases. Thus, in Kurt v. Turkey, 1 the Court held: that the authors of the Convention reinforced the individual s protection against arbitrary deprivation of his or her liberty by guaranteeing a corpus of substantive rights which are intended to minimise the risks of arbitrariness by allowing the act of deprivation of liberty to be amenable to independent judicial scrutiny and by securing the accountability of the authorities for that act. [ ] What is at stake is both the protection of the physical liberty of individuals as well as their personal security in a context which, in the absence of safeguards, could result in a subversion of the rule of law and place detainees beyond the reach of the most rudimentary forms of legal protection. In seeking to give effect to the requirements of Article 5, the interpretation of text by the European Court of Human Rights is vital. As with all the articles of the European Convention, the European Court has interpreted every provision of Article 5 in a purposeful and dynamic manner, inevitably taking one beyond the literal terms of the text of the Convention in determining what particular provisions entail. Many such terms have been given an autonomous meaning by the European Court. The purposive interpretation proceeds on the basis that the object and purpose of the European Convention must be reached when determining what Article 5 and its other provisions require. This approach is consistent with the rules of treaty interpretation and it is also a reflection of the constitutional character of the European Convention. It is thus inappropriate to see the restrictions imposed by Article 5 as ones which should be narrowly construed. The aim of the Con- 1 Kurt v. Turkey, judgment of 25 May 1998, para

9 vention is to secure real rights for individuals, which means that the rights should be ones with a substantive content and not simply affording a mere formal guarantee. Consequently, the limitations on the right to liberty should be seen as exceptional and only permitted where a cogent justification for them is provided; their implementation cannot begin with any assumption that anything which public authorities propose is necessarily appropriate. The dynamic interpretation embodies a willingness to re-examine the interpretation already given to a particular provision in the light of changing circumstances. The significance of the European Court s interpretation of the legal texts cannot be underestimated. In order to achieve a full compliance with obligations under Article 5 (as well as under the entire Convention) judges must observe the European Court s dynamic case-law. The subsequent sections will address the fundamental principles and rules found in Article 5 of the European Convention on the basis of their interpretation and application to concrete situations by the Court in Strasbourg. 7

10 Section I: presumption of liberty; requirement of lawfulness; concept of detention 1. The presumption in favour of liberty Paragraph 1 of Article 5 of the European Convention points to there being a presumption that everyone should enjoy liberty and that, therefore, a person can only be deprived of it in exceptional circumstances. Thus it begins with an unqualified assertion of the right, Everyone has the right to liberty and security of the person and this is followed by the structure that No one shall be deprived of liberty save in the following cases and in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law. Furthermore, the presumption in favour of liberty is underlined by the imperative requirement under Article 5 to ensure that liberty should both be lost for no longer than is absolutely necessary and be capable of being readily recovered where such loss is not justified. The former is evident in the stipulation that suspected offenders shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time and the latter is found in the prescription that everyone deprived of liberty be entitled to take proceedings by which the lawfulness of his detention shall be decided speedily by a court and his release ordered if the detention is not lawful. There is thus a clear burden of proof on those who have taken away someone s liberty to establish not only that the power under which it occurred falls within one of the grounds specified in Article 5 but also that its exercise was applicable to the particular situation in which it was used. This burden necessarily requires a self-critical analysis by those who can exercise powers which may lead to a deprivation of liberty to ensure that, when they do use them, the limits imposed by Article 5 are continually observed. However, the assurance that such an analysis is both undertaken and is effective is heavily dependent upon a sceptical perspective being adopted on the part of judges when performing the key supervisory function assigned to them by Article 5 (3) and (4). In any case, where a deprivation of liberty is contested it will be essential for a judge to start from the proposition that the person affected should be free. Pursuant to such a proposition the judge should not only expect and require reasons to be advanced for this deprivation of liberty but also subject them to close scrutiny to see whether they actually support the action that has been taken. Anything less than that would entail an abandonment of the rule of law and a surrender to arbitrary treatment. The unacceptability of any tendency in this direction can be seen in the European Court s conclusion that a person s continued detention could not 8

11 2 8 June Although accepting that it is principally for the authorities of a State party and especially the courts to interpret and apply its law, the Court reserves the power to review whether that law has in fact been complied with; and in some of the cases considered below it has reached a different conclusion from that arrived at by those authorities February March be justified in Mansur v. Turkey, 2 when the national court repeatedly authorised the continuation of detention using invariably identical and indeed stereotypical form of words, often without further elaboration. In taking such an approach the national judge was merely rubber-stamping the decision of the law-enforcement officials and failing to exercise an independent critical judgement. This can never be consistent with the requirement that a deprivation of liberty be justified. 2. The lawfulness of the detention Paragraph 1 of Article 5 requires that any deprivation of liberty be in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law. Further, each sub-paragraph providing for the cases where deprivation of liberty is permitted supposes that the measure be lawful. The requirement of lawfulness has been interpreted as referring to both procedure and substance. Moreover, lawfulness is understood to mean that any detention must be in accordance with the national law and the European Convention and must not be arbitrary. Formal compliance with national law It is, of course, essential to check first whether the requirements of the relevant national law have been satisfied when someone has been deprived of his or her liberty. This may be a matter of determining whether an essential procedure has been followed, or assessing whether there is a legal provision covering the action taken. The latter may be a matter of construing the scope of a particular provision but it may also be a question of establishing that the sort of factual situation to which such a provision applied actually existed. There are a significant number of instances where the European Court has found that these have still not been performed and they should not, therefore, be taken for granted. 3 Thus in Van der Leer v. the Netherlands 3 a woman had been confined in a psychiatric hospital, but the judge who had made the order had failed to observe the legislative requirement that she be heard beforehand. Indeed, as the Court noted, the judge had not even bothered to explain why he had departed from the opinion of the psychiatrist dealing with the woman s case that it would not be devoid of purpose or medically inadvisable for her to be heard by a judge. It is irrelevant for the purposes of applying the European Convention that the woman s confinement might on its merits have been appropriate and consistent in this respect with the grounds authorised by Article 5; wherever there has been a failure to fulfil a procedural requirement before liberty can be deprived the arrest or detention must necessarily be regarded as improper. Similarly, in Lukanov v. Bulgaria 5 one of the coun- 9

12 try s former prime ministers had been deprived of his liberty in relation to the grant of certain public funds to developing countries. Although deprivation of liberty in connection with criminal offences is potentially compatible with the Convention, there was a failure to establish in this case that the activity giving rise to the loss of liberty was actually unlawful, let alone a criminal offence. This impugned activity of the applicant could not, therefore, provide a basis in Bulgarian law for depriving him of his liberty. Furthermore, even if the criminal prohibition on seeking an advantage for oneself might have been potentially applicable to the making of these grants (which seemed unlikely), there was no fact or information which pointed to the existence of a reasonable suspicion that the prime minister had actually sought such an advantage. His loss of liberty was thus entirely without any legal foundation and was an incontestable violation of Article 5. This was also the case in Steel v. the United Kingdom 6 with respect to some of the applicants who had been arrested when handing out leaflets and holding up banners in the course of a protest about the sale of weapons. Although there was a power of arrest where a breach of the peace was apprehended, their behaviour did not provide the police with any justification for fearing that this would occur; there was no evidence that they had significantly obstructed or attempted to obstruct persons attending the conference or had taken any other action that was likely to provoke them to violence. The European Court held that the arrest and subsequent detention of these applicants under the breach of the peace power was unlawful. 7 The importance of a continuing legal basis The requirement of the legal basis for any deprivation of liberty extends to the whole period for which it lasts. There have been a number of instances where violations have been found because the legal basis for the deprivation of liberty, despite being originally lawful, had at some point had ceased to exist. Thus in Quinn v. France 8 the release had been ordered by a court of a person who had previously been remanded in custody entirely in accordance with French law. However, for some eleven hours after that order had been made, the applicant had remained in custody without being notified of the order or any move being made to commence its execution. Apparently, the prosecutor s office had needed this time to set in motion extradition proceedings against him which would then have avoided having to comply with the order for release. The European Court acknowledged that there could be some delay in complying with such an order, but held that the respective interval was clearly too long to satisfy the Article 5 requirement. In Labita v. Italy, a violation of Article 5 was found where the delay of over 10 hours in release 6 23 September See also Raninen v. Finland, 16 December 1997, where an arrest of someone who had refused to perform his national service had been contrary to Finnish law, because he had not first been asked whether he would persist in this refusal March

13 9 6 April November See also Engel and Others v. the Netherlands, 8 June 1976, where the maximum permitted provisional arrest period of twenty-four hours was exceeded by between twenty-two and thirty hours March Other factors shaping the notion of lawfulness are considered further below. A violation of Article 5 (1) for these reasons in respect of the same practice has also been found in Kawka v. Poland, 9 January Prior to the rulings in these cases the practice had been ended and replaced by one of referring each case where a detention order had been made at the investigation stage to a court in order to obtain a fresh ruling as to whether the detention of the person concerned should continue. This fulfils the Convention s requirements as to lawfulness and judicial supervision July from prison was attributable to the absence of the registration officer, which prevented verification of whether there were any other reasons for keeping the applicant in detention. 9 In K.-F. v. Germany, 10 where national law granted the authorities the power to detain a person up to twelve hours in order to establish his or her identity, the applicant was kept in custody forty minutes longer than the twelve-hour limit. The German Government claimed that this had been required in order to record the applicant s personal details. The European Court observed that this recording of details was part of the measures for checking identity and it should, therefore, have been carried out during the period of detention which was allotted by the law for this purpose. In the circumstances the detention of the applicant had to be regarded as having become unlawful and the Court found a violation of Article Misguided reliance on domestic practice Violations of Article 5 have been found by the European Court in cases where the domestic authorities relied on longstanding practices whose legality has not even been questioned. Thus in Baranowski v. Poland 12 the applicant had initially been properly arrested and then detained on remand in connection with fraud charges. His detention, however, ceased to be reviewed once the prosecutor filed the bill of indictment with the court. In accordance with the Polish practice of placing a detainee at the disposal of the court, the detention which had previously been ordered at the investigation stage of a case was prolonged indefinitely; the court was not obliged, of its own motion, to make any further decision as to whether the detention fixed at that stage should be extended. This practice had undoubtedly and understandably arisen to fill a gap, but there was a complete absence of any support for it in either legislation or case-law. It is doubtful whether the legality of the practice was ever questioned, since the need for continued detention was undeniable and potentially quite compatible with the European Convention and its development is a good illustration of how the general legitimacy of a course of conduct can lead one into overlooking or failing to question the absence of legality for it. In this case the Court condemned the practice as a violation of Article 5 (1) because it was seen as lacking foreseeability and certainty, as well as giving scope for arbitrariness. 13 In Jėčius v. Lithuania 14 the applicant a murder suspect had continued to be detained after a period of detention on remand authorised by the deputy prosecutor general had expired. This appeared to be the way in which cases had come to be handled and it is the sort of habit which cannot co-exist with the requirements of the Convention. The Court held that the applicant s deprivation of liberty had been incompatible with 11

14 the principles of legal certainty and the protection from arbitrariness. 15 Compliance with the Convention. The Convention understanding of lawfulness In addition to being fully in compliance with national law, any deprivation of liberty must also satisfy the potentially wider European Convention understanding of the term lawful. This understanding relates in the first place to a concern to ensure that the specific requirements of Article 5 even though not found in national law are observed. A deprivation of liberty will be found objectionable where this is effected either as a means of interfering with other rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Convention or through a law which is applied in an arbitrary fashion or whose very character is to be regarded as deficient. In Kurt v. Turkey, the European Court held that any deprivation of liberty must not only have been effected in conformity with the substantive and procedural rules of national law but must equally be in keeping with the very purpose of Article 5, namely to protect the individual from arbitrariness. 16 Where the domestic authorities fail to provide for any ground of the detention, the Court is ready to find a violation of Article 5 (1). In Denizci and Others v. Cyprus, the applicants claimed, inter alia, that no reason was given for their arrest, and the Court found a violation of Article 5 (1), observing that the respondent government did not advance any lawful basis for the applicants arrest and detention. 17 Incompatibility with Convention provisions Deprivation of liberty legally justified at national level by grounds other than those exhaustively listed in Article 5 (1) will certainly be found unlawful as being contrary to Article 5 (1). The grounds do not, for example, permit preventive measures to be taken against suspected criminals where a prosecution is not the object of the detention. 18 Such deprivation of liberty, though legal at national level, runs contrary to Article 5 (1). However, even where deprivation falls within a listed ground, the Convention can be seen to set a limit to the acceptability of its overall duration. Thus in the case of persons detained pending trial this is found in the explicit requirement in Article 5 (3) that the trial be within a reasonable time; whereas in the case of persons detained in connection with deportation, extradition and related proceedings it is derived from the implied obligation of the authority concerned to act with reasonable diligence. Arbitrary use of power However, even if a national law authorising a deprivation does not give rise to any of these ob- 15 A similar finding of a violation of Article 5 (1) was made in Grauslys v. Lithuania, 10 October May May Jėčius v. Lithuania. 12

15 19 4 April May jections and is in other respects entirely compatible with the European Convention standard, its use in particular circumstances might still not be regarded as lawful because it is considered to be arbitrary. This designation would certainly be seen as appropriate when a power is used in circumstances where a deprivation of liberty is not really needed or is designed to achieve an illegal objective. An instance of the former can be seen in Witold Litwa v. Poland, 19 where a person who was blind in one eye and whose sight in the other was severely impaired had been confined in a soberingup centre after post office clerks to whom he had complained about his boxes being opened and empty had called the police, alleging that he was drunk and behaving offensively. However, although the applicant s detention was for a ground included in Article 5 (1) (e) the detention of alcoholics the use of the power was clearly unnecessary given the absence of any threat to the public or himself, his blindness and the rather trivial circumstances of the case. Furthermore the law provided for other, far less draconian measures for dealing with an intoxicated person such as being taken to a public-care establishment or to his or her own home and no consideration appeared to have been giving to using them. As a result the deprivation of liberty was, notwithstanding its formal legal basis, to be regarded as an arbitrary use of power and thus unlawful. A similar conclusion might, for example, be reached where a power of detention to establish identity was employed against someone already known to the police officer, notwithstanding that the person concerned was not carrying his or her identity papers at the time. The patently unnecessary use of the power in such circumstances would lead to it being found to be arbitrary. Such an unjustified use of power can also be seen in Tsirlis and Kouloumpas v Greece, 20 in which two Jehovah s Witnesses had been imprisoned following their conviction for insubordination after they had been summoned for military service and had refused to join their units or wear military uniform. At all times they had maintained that they were ministers of religion and as such exempt from military service. The applicability of such exemption to ministers who were Jehovah s Witnesses was well established in the case-law of the supreme administrative court, but the European Court found that it had been blatantly ignored by the military courts which had trailed the applicants. In these circumstances the proceedings against the applicants, leading to their loss of liberty, were to be regarded as arbitrary and thus unlawful for the purposes of Article 5 (1). Furthermore, the use of a lawful power solely to achieve an illegal objective would not be acceptable under the Convention, regardless of whether such a use of a national legal provision is considered within the country concerned to be objectionable. Thus in 13

16 Bozano v France 21 a violation of Article 5 (1) was found where a person had been detained supposedly for the purpose of deportation but actually as a device to circumvent restrictions on extradition. In this case a request for extradition to Italy was rejected by a French court. However, over a month after being released by the French courts, the applicant was arrested and served with a deportation order that had actually been issued while he was still in custody during the extradition proceedings. The applicant was then taken to the Swiss frontier, even though the Spanish border was much nearer, and handed over to the police in Switzerland. Once in that country extradition proceedings to Italy were successfully concluded and the applicant was taken to an Italian prison to serve his sentence. The European Court found a violation of Article 5 (1) stating that this whole course of conduct was arbitrary. There were various factors which the Court emphasised in reaching this conclusion: the delay in the implementation of the deportation measure so that the applicant was not in a position to make use of any of the effective remedies available to him; the fact that Switzerland and Italy appeared to be apprised beforehand of the course of action taken; the failure to inform the applicant of the deportation order when an application for a residence permit was refused; and the suddenness of the applicant s apprehension and his inability to speak to his wife or his lawyer; the absence of any choice of destination upon his expulsion. All of this made it inevitable that this disguised extradition would make the applicant s deprivation of liberty arbitrary and thus unlawful for the purpose of Article 5 (1). However, although the accumulation of factors was overwhelming, each of them individually evinced a disrespect for the idea of law in its most elemental sense and it is probable that the approach underlying any one of them would be sufficient for a finding of arbitrariness. 22 Accessibility, foreseeability and other guarantees However, even if a power exits and is not misused, it will not be regarded by the European Court as providing the necessary legal basis for a deprivation of liberty if the legal provision lacks the quality which it considers essential for any law to be acceptable for European Convention purposes. This entails the law being accessible, foreseeable and certain, as well as containing other guarantees against the risk of arbitrariness in the way those subject to it might be treated. The accessibility requirement is not met if a deprivation of liberty is based on a legal provision that was secret or unpublished. The accessibility requirement will also apply to subsidiary rules adopted in the enforcement of a law. If such subsidiary rules are not widely available the European Court might find a violation of Article 5 (1). An in December See also Murray v. the United Kingdom, 28 October 1994, in which it was alleged that the purpose of an arrest was not to bring that person before the competent legal authority as a suspected criminal pursuant to Article 5 (1) (c) but merely for the purpose of interrogating her with a view to gathering general intelligence, for which there was no authorisation under the Convention. The Court concluded that no cogent elements had been produced that would lead it to depart from the findings of the domestic courts that such a covert and improper purpose had not been behind the arrest but there is no question that it would have, if it had existed, rendered the arrest unlawful for Convention purposes. It should also be noted that in Jėčius v. Lithuania, the absence of bad faith on the part of a domestic court was one of the considerations relied upon by the Court in finding that the one period of deten- 14

17 tion challenged which did have a clear legal basis was not unlawful for Convention purposes. Similarly in Benham v. the United Kingdom, 10 June 1996, the Court declined to find that a committal to prison by a court was arbitrary where it had not been suggested that the decision had either been taken in bad faith or following any neglect to attempt to apply the relevant legislation correctly. In Perks v. the United Kingdom, 12 October 1999, the Court suggested that a fettered exercise of discretion or a failure to have regard to a relevant piece of evidence might render arbitrary an otherwise formally lawful decision June See also Wloch v. Poland, 19 October 2000, where the Court doubted that a deprivation of liberty would have been lawful if it had been based solely on a provision as to the interpretation of which there were many contradictory opinions and no decisive case-law. stance of this might have been seen in Amuur v. France, 23 but for the fact that an unpublished circular the only text which dealt specifically with the practice of holding aliens in the transit zone was itself considered by the Court to be too brief and lacking in appropriate guarantees required to have the quality of law. It was immaterial, therefore, to this finding that the circular was actually unpublished and thus inaccessible but there is no doubt that there could be other instances where this would be the key consideration. In such cases the quality of content should be insufficient to prevent the inaccessibility of the rule being overlooked and the deprivation of liberty being found to be lawful. Legal certainty requires that any rules relied upon must be sufficiently precise to allow a person even with appropriate advice to foresee to a degree that is reasonable in the circumstances the consequences which a given action might entail. The failure to satisfy this test which might also be seen as a requirement to shape the law in such a way as to limit the scope for arbitrary treatment can be seen in cases such as Baranowski v. Poland and Jėčius v. Lithuania, where the European Court was, notwithstanding the view advanced above, prepared to work on the assumption that the practices impugned in those cases did have a basis in national law. Nevertheless, the Court found that they were still unlawful. In Baranowski this was both because of the absence of any precise provisions laying down whether and, if so, under what conditions detention that had been ordered at the investigation stage could properly be prolonged at the stage of the court proceedings and because a person was detained under the practice developed as a result of the statutory lacuna for an unlimited and unpredictable time without this being based on a concrete legal provision or any judicial decision. In Jėčius there was also a finding that legal certainty was absent because there were no clear rules governing the detainee s position. Detaining someone for an unlimited period without judicial authorisation, relying solely on the fact that the case had been referred to the trial court, was held to be contrary to Article 5 (1). However, legal certainty was also considered to be lacking when an attempt was made to justify the period of detention by invoking a provision in the criminal code. In so doing, three different explanations were advanced by the prosecutor, ombudsman, president of the supreme court criminal division and the government itself as to how this provision might authorise the detention concerned. Rather than try to resolve such a significant discrepancy in reasoning, the European Court understandably concluded that any provision which was vague enough to cause confusion amongst the competent State authorities must be incompatible with the requirements of lawfulness

18 The certainty requirement of the legal basis for deprivation of liberty might also be provided through associated rules, even if not of the same standing in the legal hierarchy 25 or by the development of case-law establishing the interpretation to be given to a particular provision. An example of the latter can be seen in the case of Steel v. the United Kingdom, which concerned an arrest for breach of the peace. 26 The European Court considered that the concept of breach of the peace had been clarified through two decades of domestic judicial decisions so that it only relates to persons who cause harm, or appear likely to cause harm to persons or property or who act in a manner where the natural consequence would be the provocation of others to violence. The effect of this development was thus to turn a fairly imprecise concept into one that was regulated with sufficient guidance and appropriate precision. In Wloch v. Poland, the interpretation of a provision for which there was no pertinent case law or a unanimous opinion of legal scholars was neither arbitrary nor unreasonable. However, such rulings are not an invitation to reject a challenge to a provision s lawfulness on the basis that appropriate precision will ultimately be derived from cases to be decided in the future. Nevertheless it would be a perfectly legitimate to use the power of interpretation to give a broadly-cast provision the narrow construction required to keep it lawful for Convention purposes. Certainly, the need for such guarantees can in particular contexts be quite extensive. Thus in Amuur v. France where asylum-seekers had been detained for twenty days the Court was unhappy that none of the legal texts applicable to the holding of aliens in the transit zone allowed the ordinary courts to review the conditions under which they were held or, if necessary, to impose a limit on the authorities as regards the length of time for which they were held. In addition, the European Court observed that legal texts did not provide for legal, humanitarian and social assistance and for any procedures and time-limits for access to such assistance so that asylum-seekers could take the necessary steps. Thus the laws were not regarded as having sufficiently guaranteed the right to liberty of a group of applicants who might be regarded as particularly vulnerable in the absence of such assistance. Moreover, the requirements can also be quite basic and still invaluable. Thus the Court has repeatedly emphasised the importance of accurate and reliable data being recorded about any deprivation of liberty. This concern has been expressed by the Court in a number of cases where complaints had been made about persons being apprehended by law enforcement officers and there being no information available as to what happened to the person thereafter. 27 A particular difficulty in trying to discover what happened was the lack of any official custody records in respect of the persons concerned and this, of course, made it easier for those 25 The circular in Amuur v. France was insufficient for this purpose not because of its status but because of its own lack of precision. 26 Although not formally classified as an offence, it was so regarded because of the nature of the proceedings involving the police and the first level of criminal courts and power to imprison persons who refuse to be bound over to keep the peace. 27 See Kurt v. Turkey; Çakıcı v. Turkey, 8 July 1999, Timurtaş v. Turkey, 13 June 2000 and Taş v. Turkey, 14 November Such a disappearance is likely also to entail a violation of the right to life under Article 2. 16

19 responsible for the deprivation of liberty then to evade responsibility for what had occurred. Systematic recording of data with respect to deprivation of liberty from any initial apprehension to any transfer from one place of custody to another is thus a vital safeguard against arbitrary treatment. An institutionalised process of recording even where there is no risk of such grave abuse as disappearance is seen as essential requirement whenever a deprivation of liberty occurs. 3. What constitutes a deprivation of liberty? Arrest and detention The terms arrest and detention are used interchangeably in almost all the provisions of Article 5 and they should therefore be seen as being essentially concerned with any measure whatever designation is used by national law that has the effect of depriving a person of his or her liberty. The guarantee afforded by the judicial supervision requirement in Article 5 is taken by the Court to arise as soon as the initial loss of liberty has happened, and any other approach will necessarily entail a violation of the Convention. The essential requirement is to concentrate on what is achieved by processes and not what they are called. Elements to establish that detention exists It is important to be clear about what constitutes a deprivation of liberty whether by means of arrest or detention and when it starts, because it is only then that the requirements of Article 5 of the European Convention become applicable. This might seem self-evident but it still needs to be emphasised as there can certainly be situations where someone has been deprived of his or her liberty but this might still not be appreciated by the persons responsible, particularly if no physical restraint has been imposed. Identifying the moment at which liberty is lost is especially important in the context of the criminal process on account of the need to scrutinise both the delay before the person affected is first brought before a judge and the overall length of any detention prior to any trial that might take place. Elements such as the nature of the confinement involved and the status of the person affected are essential in determining whether a particular measure constitutes deprivation of liberty. The nature of the confinement The European Court will certainly look at the nature of the confinement. Deprivation of liberty will most obviously have occurred where a person is being forcibly kept in a police or prison cell but there are many other forms of confinement which can lead 17

20 to Article 5 becoming applicable. Certainly this will be the case where, for example, a law enforcement officer whether or not force is actually used makes it clear that a person either cannot leave a particular place or is obliged to come with the officer to some other place. Thus it would cover a person being stopped in the street or being required to stay in a police station after having originally come there of his or her own free will. It is the existence of compulsion that is important so that, as the European Court made clear in De Wilde, Ooms and Versyp v. Belgium, 28 it is of no consequence that the person may have surrendered him or herself voluntarily. Moreover it is probably irrelevant that the person deprived of liberty is unaware of this fact; it is sufficient that he or she is no longer free to leave. Article 5 is most commonly going to be relevant where the degree of confinement to a particular place is extreme in that the person affected cannot move from a certain spot whether in the street or other open place or is required to stay in a certain vehicle or room (not necessarily a cell). However, the fact that a person has a degree of liberty within a particular place will not necessarily mean that Article 5 has no application. Thus it was found in Ashingdane v. the United Kingdom 29 to cover a person who, although being kept compulsorily in a mental hospital, was placed in a ward which was not locked and was allowed to leave the hospital grounds during the day and over the weekend without being accompanied. Similarly in Guzzardi v. Italy 30 it was held applicable to a requirement that someone suspected of involvement in organised crime live in an unfenced area of 2.5 sq. km on a remote island with other such persons. Although his wife and child could live with him, the combination of constraint and isolation were sufficient in this case for it to be treated as a deprivation of liberty. These factors are more significant than the place, so a requirement that a person stay in their home would engage Article 5, whether as in Giulia Manzoni v. Italy 31 this was pending trial or as in Cyprus v. Turkey 32 pursuant to a particularly strict form of curfew under which persons could leave their homes only if escorted. Where there is confinement to a particular area such as a village or district but there is no accompanying isolation as there was in the Guzzardi case it is much more likely to be regarded as an interference with freedom of movement rather than a deprivation of liberty. Equally, restrictions on persons seeking entry to a country such as a requirement that they stay in a particular area at the airport as opposed to being forcibly kept in a special detention centre for aliens would not generally be regarded as a deprivation of liberty since they would still have the option of going to another country. However, such an option must be a realistic one and would not exist if either there were no June May November July Appl. Nos. 6780/74 and 6950/75 (Commission Report). 18

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